Hassan Rouhani's comments came a day after Trump said on Monday that there's a "really good chance" the two could meet on their nuclear impasse after a surprise intervention by French President Emmanuel Macron during the G-7 summit to try to bring Washington and Tehran together after decades of conflict.

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"Without the US's withdrawal of sanctions, we will not witness any positive development," Rouhani said in a televised speech on Tuesday, adding that Washington "holds the key" as to what happens next.

"If someone intends to make it as just a photo op with Rouhani, that is not possible," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Rouhani expressed readiness to negotiate a way out of the crisis following America's pullout from the nuclear deal.

"If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country's development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it," he had said. "Even if the odds of success are not 90% but are 20% or 10%, we must move ahead with it. We should not miss opportunities."

Rouhani also shielded his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, against criticism from hard-liners over his surprise visit on Sunday to France's Biarritz, where leaders of the G-7 were meeting.

Iran's English-language Press TV issued a vague, anonymous statement later on Monday, rejecting Macron's initiative.

Macron said he hoped Trump and Rouhani could meet within weeks in hopes of saving the 2015 nuclear deal that Tehran struck with world powers, but which the US unilaterally withdrew from last year. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

On Tuesday, Macron acknowledged his efforts to bring Iran and the US together are "fragile" but said that he still sees a "possible path" to rapprochement between the two.

Inviting Zarif to the G-7 summit as a surprise guest was a risky diplomatic maneuver but it helped create "the possible conditions of a useful meeting," Macron said.

It's France's responsibility to play the "role of the balancing power," Macron said, adding that his efforts allowed hope for a "de-escalation" of tensions.

Since the US pullout from the nuclear deal, Iran has lost billions of dollars in business deals allowed by the accord as the US re-imposed and escalated sanctions largely blocking Tehran from selling crude oil abroad, a crucial source of hard currency for the Islamic Republic.

Rouhani's U-turn can be seen as a result of pressure from hard-liners in the Iranian establishment who oppose taking a softer tone toward the West.

But it could also reflect that the paradigm of a grand photo-op summit does not necessarily appeal to Rouhani, whose signature accomplishment was the nuclear deal, which started unraveling with Trump's pullout.

The hard-line Javan daily, which is close to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, warned Rouhani in large font on its Tuesday front page: "Mr. Rouhani, photo diplomacy will not develop the country."

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Just last week, the president told reporters that the plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict likely won't be unveiled until after the Sept. 17 vote, but bits and pieces could be revealed beforehand.

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But speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in France on Monday, Trump said that both Israelis and Palestinians were interested in reaching a peace deal and this could prompt him to move faster.

"We're going to know who the [Israeli] prime minister is going to be fairly soon," he said. "[A deal] won't be before the election, I don't think… But I think you may see what the deal is before the election. And I think the deal will happen… Everybody says, that's the deal that can't be made… Israel and the Palestinians: there's tremendous hatred for many, many decades, and everybody says that is a deal that can't be made. So we'll see if we can make it."

"I think the Palestinians will be happy to get US funding again and make a deal," Trump added, referring to his administration's decision to slash funding for Palestinian agencies in an apparent effort to pressure the government into negotiating.

President @realDonaldTrump: I think Israel and the Palestinians would like to make a deal — after so many years and decades, I think they are tired of fighting.

https://t.co/xMwAOcBbDK pic.twitter.com/XbbT9mpOmw

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) August 26, 2019

While the economic component of the plan was laid out at a Bahrain conference in June, the political aspect was put on hold until after the summer due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inability to form a governing coalition, thus leading to an additional election on September 17.

Donald Trump's son-in-law and Senior Adviser to the President Jared Kushner and Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt have spearheaded the administration's peace initiative and have let little slip about what the plan entails.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has been steadfast in their vows to reject any negotiation presented by the US after Trump's unilateral decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, naming it as Israel's undivided capital.

In turn, the Palestinians say they no longer view Washington as an unbiased peace broker and boycotted the Bahrain "Peace to Prosperity" summit.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS. 

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Trump, who in 2017 pulled the United States out of the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord involving nearly 200 countries and has described global warming as a "hoax," also sought to portray himself as an environmentalist at a news conference at the close of the G-7 summit in France.

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"I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet. I've made that wealth come alive. ... We are now the No. 1 energy producer in the world, and soon it will be by far," Trump told reporters when asked about his views on climate change.

"I'm not going to lose that wealth, I'm not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren't working too well," he added.

Trump's administration has reversed US environmental protections put in place by his predecessor Barack Obama and has weakened the Endangered Species Act wildlife conservation law.

The US president skipped a session on climate change and biodiversity at the summit, instead holding bilateral meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The G-7 leaders discussed the rainforest fires in Brazil and agreed to draw up an initiative for the Amazon to be launched at the UN General Assembly in New York next month.

French President Emmanuel Macron downplayed Trump's absence.

"He wasn't in the room, but his team was," Macron said. "You shouldn't read anything into the American president's absence. ... The US is with us on biodiversity and on the Amazon initiative."

Trump called himself an environmentalist, noting that he had filled out so many environmental impact statements as part of his work as a real estate developer.

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Speaking alongside Trump at the close of the G-7 summit in Biarritz on Monday, Macron said G-7 leaders had agreed that Iran needed to meet its nuclear obligations and that there was a hope for a diplomatic breakthrough in the tensions that have grown since the US left the 2015 nuclear accord.

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"Two things are very important for us: Iran must never have nuclear weapons, and this situation should never threaten regional stability," Macron said in his closing remarks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "What unites us, and that is a big step forward, is that we not only don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons but also that we [want to] find the solution to that via political means."

On Sunday, Iran's foreign minister made a flying visit for talks with host France at the G-7 summit, as Paris ramped up efforts to ease tensions between Tehran and Washington, a dramatic diplomatic move that the White House said had surprised them.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is under US sanctions, flew to the southwest French town of Biarritz where the Group of Seven leaders are meeting. He held more than three hours of talks, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, before heading back to Tehran.

"Road ahead is difficult. But worth trying," Zarif tweeted, adding that in addition to meeting French leaders he had given a joint briefing to officials from Germany and Britain.

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European leaders have struggled to tamp down the brewing confrontation between Iran and the United States since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of Iran's internationally-brokered 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy.

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Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is under US sanctions, flew to the southwest French town of Biarritz where the Group of Seven leaders are meeting. He held more than three hours of talks, including with French President Emmanuel Macron, before heading back to Tehran.

"Road ahead is difficult. But worth trying," Zarif tweeted, adding that in addition to meeting French leaders he had given a joint briefing to officials from Germany and Britain.

French officials sought to bill the meeting as important to "refine Iranian propositions" to help defuse the crisis after G-7 leaders had discussed Iran over dinner on Saturday.

"The discussions that were held between the president and Zarif were positive and will continue," a French official said after the meeting, declining to take detailed questions.

The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers aimed to curb Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of many international sanctions on Tehran.

Since pulling Washington out of the deal last year, Trump has pushed a maximum pressure policy to try to force Iran into a new negotiation that would include its ballistic missile program and regional activities.

While Trump's European allies also want new talks with Iran, they believe the nuclear deal must be upheld. Macron, who has taken the lead in Europe in trying to salvage the agreement and avert a deeper crisis in the Middle East, had already met Zarif in Paris on Friday.

They discussed proposals to de-escalate tensions between Washington and Tehran, including easing some US sanctions or providing Iran with an economic compensation mechanism to make up for oil revenues lost under US sanctions.

But despite Macron spending two hours with Trump over lunch on Saturday and all seven leaders discussing Iran at length in the evening, it did not appear that the US leader had budged on easing oil sanctions as Macron had sought from Trump.

A European diplomat familiar with the discussions said the leaders had failed at the dinner to persuade Trump.

Earlier on Sunday Trump appeared to brush aside French efforts to mediate with Iran, saying that while he was happy for Macron to reach out to Tehran to defuse tensions, the United States would carry on with its own initiatives.

Trump and Macron are scheduled to hold a joint news conference at 3:30 p.m. on Monday at the conclusion of the summit, the White House said.

Macron's invitation to Zarif had caught Trump by surprise, a White House official said, and no US officials met with Zarif during the visit.

Other delegations also said they had been informed at the last minute. The Elysee said delegations had been informed, but everything had happened very quickly.

US authorities earlier this month placed Zarif under US sanctions.

In response to the tougher US sanctions and what it says is the failure of European powers party to the deal – France, Britain and Germany – to compensate it for lost revenues, Tehran has responded with a series of moves, including retreating from some of its commitments to limit its nuclear activity.

Highlighting just how difficult it will be to ease tensions, two Iranian officials and one diplomat told Reuters on Sunday that Iran wants to export a minimum of 700,000 barrels per day of its oil and ideally up to 1.5 million barrels per day if the West wants to negotiate with Tehran to save the nuclear deal.

One of the Iranian officials also said Iran's ballistic missile program was not open for negotiation.

"We'll do our own outreach, but, you know, I can't stop people from talking. If they want to talk, they can talk," Trump said earlier when asked about Macron's mediation efforts.

The United States has made no indication it will ease any curbs and it is unclear what kind of compensation mechanism Macron wants to offer Iran, given at this stage a proposed trade channel for humanitarian and food exchanges with Iran is still not operational.

Macron has also said that in return for any concessions he would expect Iran to comply fully with the nuclear deal and for Iran to engage in new negotiations.

"It's unprecedented and, given the context, it's pretty audacious," said a French diplomatic source.

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"Zarif came to Paris on Friday with Iranian propositions which obviously must be refined," the French official said.

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"Yesterday there was a substantial discussion between G7 leaders and it is important to now update Zarif in order to keep closing the gap...on the conditions with which we could de-escalate the tensions and create breathing space for negotiations."

Flight tracking website flightradar24.com showed an Iranian government jet landed at Biarritz's airport, which has been closed for the duration of the summit from Saturday to Monday.

Iranian state television cited the foreign ministry as saying Zarif would not hold talks with US President Donald Trump's summit delegation.

Asked to comment on reports that Zarif had landed in Biarritz, Trump said: "No comment."

The office of French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting the G-7 summit, declined to comment as did the French foreign ministry.

Earlier, Trump appeared to brush aside French efforts to mediate with Iran on Sunday, saying that while he was happy for Macron to reach out to Tehran to defuse tensions, he would carry on with his own initiatives.

European leaders have struggled to tamp down the brewing confrontation between Iran and the United States since Trump pulled his country out of Iran's internationally-brokered 2015 nuclear deal and re-imposed sanctions on the Iranian economy.

Macron, who has pushed mediation efforts in recent weeks to avoid a further deterioration in the region, had told LCI television that the G-7 had agreed on joint action on Iran.

The French presidency said G-7 leaders had even agreed that Macron should hold talks and pass on messages to Iran after they discussed the issue over dinner at a summit in southwestern France on Saturday evening.

However, Trump, who has pushed a maximum pressure policy on Iran, pushed back.

Asked if he had signed off on a statement that Macron intends to give on behalf of the G-7 on Iran, Trump said:

"I haven't discussed this. No I haven't," he told reporters, adding that Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were free to talk to Iran.

"We'll do our own outreach, but, you know, I can't stop people from talking. If they want to talk, they can talk."

Macron, who has taken the lead to defuse tensions fearing that a collapse of the nuclear deal could set ablaze the Middle East, met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Friday. The aim was to discuss proposals that could ease the crisis, including the idea of reducing some US sanctions or providing Iran with an economic compensation mechanism.

Macron appeared to backtrack on his own team's comments later, saying there was no formal mandate from the G-7 leaders to pass a message to Iran.

Highlighting just how difficult agreeing on concrete measures between allies is, Macron said the leaders' views had converged on not wanting Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb and ensuring peace and security in the Middle East.

He was supposed to discuss those ideas with Trump on the sidelines of the G-7, which also comprises Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and the EU.

"Everyone wants to avoid a conflict, Donald Trump was extremely clear on that point," Macron told LCI.

In response to the tougher US sanctions and what it says is the inability of European powers party to the deal – France, Britain and Germany – to compensate it for its lost oil revenue, Tehran has responded with a series of moves, including retreating from some of its commitments to limit its nuclear activity made under the deal.

The United States has made no indication it will ease any sanctions and it is unclear what kind of compensation mechanism Macron wants to offer Iran given at this stage a proposed trade channel for humanitarian and food exchanges with Iran is still not operational.

Macron has also said that in return for any concessions he would expect Iran to comply fully with the nuclear deal and for Iran to engage in new negotiations that would include its ballistic missile program and regional activities.

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After ramping up his high-risk trade war with China on Friday, Trump left for the meeting with his Western partners in the town of Biarritz threatening to impose tariffs on French wine.

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"Trade wars will lead to recession, while trade deals will boost the economy," EU Council President Donald Tusk
said as leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) countries descended on the French resort town of Biarritz for a three-day summit.

"The last thing we need is a confrontation with our best ally the United States," Tusk said, adding however that the bloc would "respond in kind" to any new US tariffs.

In a televised address to the nation from Biarritz, French President Emmanuel Macron also stressed that his goal was "to convince all our partners that trade tensions are bad for everyone". And he vowed to work on "a real recovery" for the global economy.

"We have to achieve some form of de-escalation, stabilize things, and avoid this trade war that is taking place all over," he said. "We have to work for more growth, and more jobs."

France, in particular, was targeted by Trump just before his departure for Biarritz, when the US leader threatened to impose heavy tariffs on French wines in retaliation for a new French tax on large US tech companies like Google.

"Frankly, I don't want France going out and taxing our companies. Very unfair," he told reporters in Washington on Friday. "If they do that, we'll be taxing their wine or doing something else. We'll be taxing their wine like they've never seen before."

Wall Street stocks slumped on Friday after Trump escalated his trade war with China that is seen as a possible reason for the global slowdown.

The trade disputes have jumped to the forefront of this year's G-7 summit, with both Tusk and Macron also warning that any ambitious deal in the works between the EU and Latin American nations is now at risk over Brazil's response to an outbreak of wildfires in the Amazon.

"It is hard to imagine a harmonious process of ratification by the European countries as long as the Brazilian government allows for the destruction of the green lungs of planet Earth," he added.

Tusk added that the EU was ready to offer financial help to fight the fires.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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